Orbiting a comet

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What’s that fear of holes called again?

Because I’m getting it.

Even though in this case they aren’t holes, just really dark shadows. But I bet that’s where the spiders are hiding.

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Paraphrasing Terry Pratchett: The problem isn’t heights, it’s depths. And the sudden stop hidden but implied.

Also, the photo at the top looks like a Firefly Class that’s been pasted by a thousand tons of surplus gypsum. Mud, that is. It looks like the crew of Serenity may have found its way back to the system of Earth that Was.

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Why don’t I see any stuff flying off it? Not close enough to the sun? Or are the quantities not dense enough to see when up close? I would think, though, if enough H20 and other stuff sheds off it to see a tail from millions of miles away, we would see some sign at 100k miles and closer.

And… if the fact we don’t see any tail effect is because it hasn’t approached close enough to the sun yet–can we expect a much more impressive show when it does approach more closely?

Have to say, it looks like a run-of-the-mill asteroid right now.

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Oh my god, people, it has a face. Just look at it. Look at the face.

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I expected comets to look like enormous snowflakes up close when in cool mode. I am betting the photos they take on the surface will reveal some filamenty and crystalish features. this photo looks like it was put together from data and some guesses.

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Right now it’s 3.59 AU from the Sun, in the distance from the Sun of the asteroid belt. 13 August 2015 it’ll reach perihelion almost at Earth’s orbit 1.24 AU (Although the Earth will be clear around the Sun at that point). Then it’ll start heading back out into the black again; it’s not a sun-grazing comet — it never comes closer to the Sun than outside of Earth’s orbit. . It’ll reach aphelion at 5.68 AU, beyond the orbit of Jupiter, in August 2018.

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“Pareidolia, the destroyer!”

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I think it’s badass. And also a little sad: we can orbit and land on a comet, but global climate change is a myth perpetrated by Obama and the lib’ruls.

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